Death looks so good on you
by Siryanne
Summary: Severus' funeral day. His life partner Hermione stands quietly above his coffin, thinking about their life together. Death looks so good on him. How could she be unhappy?


NB:The original title is "La mort te va si bien," and the story is, as you will guess, a translation of one of my French fanfictions. It is a short one shot written after I have seen the poster of a movie in the street: "La mort vous va si bien" ("Death looks so good on you," but I don't know if this is the English version). I haven't seen the movie, which is an adaptation of a play, so I think this story has nothing to do with it :) (Edit 03.05.2007 : wow, I finally saw the movie. Hm hm... The English title is "Death becomes her" and it's such a ridiculous movie! lol! )

_Thanks to my wonderful and lovable beta reader **Victoria**. _

* * *

**Death looks so good on you**

Death looks so good on you, my love.

You look so quiet. Relieved. Happy.

The last guests have just left our residence. Half of them did not know you. The other half only thought they did.

Harry had come. Did you know? Did you notice him from your perch? I don't think you did. Had you seen Harry Potter looking at you without a hint of hate or disgust, you would have been so astonished that you probably would have come back among us in order to come out with an acerbic remark and, like this, restore the nature of things.

Well, that is what you would have done... before...

There was only respect in Harry's eyes. What? Me? Prone to hallucinations? No, Severus, he respected you. I swear to you. You just had to disappear for him to realize that. That's often the way it is.

Ron, on the other hand, didn't show himself. It has been so long since I got news about him that I sometimes begin to wonder if you share the same realm now. The last time I heard from him was just before the announcement of my engagement with you, I think. In fact, it was not so long ago when I think about it... Time has passed so quickly... Everything is so relative.

Death looks so much better on you than life, my darling.

You look... released. Peaceful.

I tried. I really tried to give you a perfect life. I did everything. I know you tried to pretend, for me, but as good of an Occlumens as you were, you had not been able to prevent me from reading your deepest thoughts. Not me. Not me who had succeeded in breaking your barriers and so destructed yourself...

You had carved out such a supposed impassable shell for yourself! To dig a gap amounted to cause a collapse. I disrupted the nature of things, I drove you out of the wall, I forced you to come to light, and to cease to suffer in silence because I loved you, and I thought it was the best for you.

But look at the result.

Forgive me, please.

I made a wreck of you.

When you withdrew into yourself, when you displayed your cold, impassive, expression, when you persisted in being sharp and brusque, I thought you were slowly destroying yourself. But, as I realized far too late, it was in fact your only way to protect yourself from what you were afraid of: the world.

I thought that to open yourself to that world would cure all your aches. Stupid girl... It only made your state worse. Without your façade, you were exposed, uncovered, like a hare trying to escape a bird of prey in a burrow-less meadow. You were damned.

Oh, first, I believed in it. I believed in your smiles, in your few tears (I thought they were tears of happiness), in your thanks; I really believed in it. You were a good actor. But I finally understood a few years ago. I understood when, at night, I woke up and found you crying discreetly in a corner of the room, believing I was sleeping. I understood when, in the morning, you took a long time to get up, staring at the ceiling, as if nothing was worth it anymore. I understood when, on countless evenings, you came back from your lessons with a look of weariness and tiredness, which had nothing to do with the exasperation that pupils had provoked inside you throughout past. That _I_ had provoked inside you, too. I listened at your class door once, you know. I heard hubbub from your pupils that my contemporary fellows would have never dared utter in front of you. You had lost one of the most important things for you: their respect (even if it was provoked by fear).

How could have I known? How could have I guessed that to bury your past deep down was your only way to survive? I could not guess that to revive this past amounted to launch an auto destruction process. Why did you not stop me? Why did you open yourself so...

For me... You did it for me... I insisted so much. I believed it was the best for you. But in fact it was the best for _me_... because I couldn't bear anymore that silence and the walls that remained between us. You did it out of love for me... I dare to believe that this was not comedy, at least. Well, I'm unfair. I know it was not. You were able to lie about your words and your acts, not about your feelings.

We were in love, despite everything. Despite everyone.

And here I am today, plunged into white mourning, in the living room of the house, which has sheltered our love for more than twenty years. How could I have covered myself in black when it was the colour that had characterized your life?  
Here I am in front of your shroud, in front of your still and cold body, in front of your relieved face. During a brief moment of distraction I dreamt; I hoped you were just asleep. I told myself that the last two days had just been a very bad dream. I even imagined it was a joke. A very bad joke, indeed, but you have never been noted for your humour. I imagined that you were going to open your eyes and get up. That you would laugh. Not me. That you would embrace me once again. That I would smile. That you would kiss me...

But it was ridiculous. It was so unlike you. It was just the materialization of the fantasies I cherished about the life I could have given to you. I failed. I did everything wrong.

But I know you don't hold a grudge towards me. You didn't seem to think that I was at fault, even if I was totally. I know that, anywhere you are now, the look you give me is only love. I feel it. I feel that my tears of pain hurt you. I feel that the tears of happiness that are mixed with them appeased you. I feel your distant presence. Don't go away too far, Severus. Wait for me. A few years. Even a few months, perhaps. Wait for me on the other side.

The life I had given to you had no more interest for you. But you pretended, for me, with a smile on your lips, which was your most beautiful token of love. What else could I do to thank you and to make it up than what I have done two days ago? You look so happy now.

Death looks so good on you, my love. How could I regret giving it to you?

o§o

_Three months later._

"Mrs. Hermione Jane Snape, you are sentenced to capital punishment for the premeditated murder of Severus Alexander Snape. You will be held in Azkaban until you receive the Dementor's Kiss."

_They take me away, Severus; they take me to Azkaban... They want to hand me over to the Dementors... They want me to forget you! They don't understand... They understand nothing! No, they won't do that to us!_

"Guards, please take... But! For Merlin's sake, where did this wand come from? Guards, grab her!"

_They won't do that, my love; they won't separate us like that! They have no right! They never understood anything. We are the only ones who can decide on our life. On our death..._

_"Avada Kedavra!"_

"Hermione!"

Harry's distant voice... screams... exclamations... vagueness... light... You, eyes filled with reproach... but with your arms wide open... your smile...

Love.

Peace.

Nothingness...

**THE END**


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